I’ve started a big writing project, and I’m preparing to sequester myself in my western NY home for a few weeks of intensive work on it. And to do that, I’m packing up things I think might be useful.

Walking through my garage I’ve nearly tripped numerous times over a big plastic tub of writing books that’s been in sitting there for years. What better time than now to see if it contained anything helpful?

Do I need them?

Stacked neatly in the bin were some 20 books on narrative arcs, character building and writing in general, including my original copy of Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, first published in 1995. Now, I’m not a huge fan of hers for reasons I won’t go into here, but I noticed I’d marked up my copy with some intriguing notes. Also that it smelled a bit mildewy.

I examined each book and realized that I had no need for most of them at this point in my writing life. But I did set aside Lamott’s volume because of my annotation and Natalie Goldberg’s equally odiferous Wild Mind in a plastic shoebox filled with baking soda. If, after a week, they don’t smell better, I’ll re-purchase them. The rest will be donated to the Little Free Libraries that dot my larger neighborhood

The gold mine

But (and more interesting) also in that original tub were stacks of little monthly Daytimeers going back to 1987. Which I started to flip through. I was stopped short by an entry that my parents were visiting from Rochester, NY, and that we were having dinner with some of my cousins who lived out here in California for a while.

Back around then,  I’d just started my Silicon Valley career. I paged through calendar entries for various tech reporter meetings, weekly staff meetings with my boss and then weekly meetings with my own staff. There were dinners with people whose names I only vaguely remembered and some I couldn’t place at all. Business trips and holiday trips “home.” Most poignant were dinners with a beloved friend, now gone.  I saw the date I began my volunteer work with the Aris Project and get-togethers with my first client with HIV and his partner. Both passed a long time ago.

I didn’t have time to go through all of the little calendars, but since my writing project is memoir, I plan to get back into the garage to ook for other old calendars I had saved for just this occasion. And sit down with them. You might say I’ll be mining for gold.

It went too quickly, didn’t it?

Yes, I’ve always been a writer and I knew one day I’d be going through all of these saved calendars and that I’d eventually get back to a memoir. (I just didn’t know what it would be about because I was in the midst of living it. Boy, would I have been surprised if I’d known what was in store!)

But to get there I am going to have to revisit all the decades that preceded this one. Even now it’s hard to fathom how quickly time has passed. How could it be 25 years since I was 50? And more than 40 since I made my escape to California? It feels like they just happened the other day.

And then there’s the what-ifs. Some entries represent decision points and I know I’ll be wondering, what if I’d made a different decision? What if I’d acted differently? Hell, I do that now, without the calendars.

I’m no stranger to Memory Lane. I spend a lot of time there, already, thinking about the many facets of the live I’ve led. For most people, it would be too much time, but for a memoirist? It’s a necessity. I’m really glad to have three weeks of alone time to get into this process.

What about you? Do you spend much time looking back into your past?